Bowling Green baseball coach Danny Schmitz and Texas softball coach Connie Clark passed the half-century mark in career victories recently.

Schmitz earned his 500th win March 31 when the Falcons beat Michigan, 8-3, while Clark reached her milestone with a 5-1 win over Iowa State on April 5.

Schmitz is the fifth Mid-American Conference coach to reach the 500-win mark, following Western Michigan’s Fred Decker, Ohio’s Joe Carbone, Toledo’s Stan Sanders and Central Michigan’s Dean Kreiner. Sixty-eight Division I coaches have earned 500 or more wins.

“The 500th win is shared by all the current and former players and assistant coaches,” Schmitz said. “This milestone was made possible by all of their hard work in building the Falcon baseball tradition.”

Schmitz is in his 19th season at Bowling Green. He played in the College World Series as a second baseman at Eastern Michigan in the 1970s and spent eight years in the minor leagues. Schmitz coached in the Minnesota Twins organization and for his alma mater before coming to Bowling Green.

Clark has amassed 500 victories in 13 seasons at Texas, but she said her mind wasn’t on the milestone.

“I don’t really think about that stuff,” she said after Texas improved its all-time record against Iowa State to 28-1. “In fact, I didn’t even realize it until I saw the story on TexasSports.com, and then luckily, Cat (former Texas pitcher Osterman) texted me last night to congratulate me, and reminded me. I just told the team, it only means you are getting older. It’s been a lot of years, but luckily in this case, it has also been a lot of success and I’m happy to have experienced it all here at Texas.”